After watching wrestling for 20 years, I thought I had enough confidence to do it. There were no wrestling schools at the time.
It’s amazing that even though I’ve lost everything else, I still have wrestling.
I’d like to be the John Wayne of the ’90s. Not in terms of being the macho guy, but as a solid male leading character. Making an action-adventure comedy that kids can see with their families is a natural extension of what I did in wrestling.
We’re the greatest athletes in the world without a doubt.
You can have a wrestling idea, but you need to have these momentum-shifting moves. We had the Hulkamania movement, then it shifted to the beer-drinking, Stone Cold era, we reinvented the business with growing the black beard and becoming the bad guy, what’s that next level.
When the script for ‘The Wrestler’ kept coming to me I said, This movie is so good if you put me in the film as a wrestler people are going to say, ‘No credibility, Hulk Hogan isn’t a good actor,’ whatever Hollywood thinks of me.
Everybody’s out there wrestling like a robot.
Hopefully I can become the Babe Ruth of the World Wrestling Federation and be the champion at the same time.
If I do hit that rope and do a hop, skip and a jump and get up as high as I can, I’m just going to hold my breath, because I know i’m going to hear all kinds of scar tissue popping.
I’m the man that made wrestling famous.
I’m 58 years old and I just went through 8 back surgeries. They started cutting on me in February 2009, and I was basically bed ridden for almost two years. I got a real dose of reality that if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.
When you start out in the wrestling business, you make a lot of mistakes, tripping over your own feet and looking like a fool.
I fear no man, no beast or evil, brother.
Be a father first. Don’t put a priority of being a friend with your wife first, or a friend with your kids first.
A lot of people didn’t realize that with the carpet being pulled out from under me in such a short time frame I got to such a bad place.
I love to give the fans what they want. They’re what I miss most when I’m not wrestling. That time in the ring is like being in heaven for me.
If I have a problem with someone I talk about them. I don’t pick on their kids.
I know what happens every time I get in front of a UK crowd – they just go nuts and they are so nice and excited and crazy and they won’t sit down.
As far as my divorce goes, I love my family and I love my wife to death and I just don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring.
Wrestling needs to be about the art form again. It needs to be about painting a picture and having a really good match.